CHANGELOG

v0.4.6 2025-01-01

• forge-read-topic-labels and forge-read-topic-marks failed to use the existing labels/marks as initial input. #731
• The repository at point is now recognized in magit-repolist-mode buffers. bb4d2038f
• forge-dispatch is now bound in magit-repolist-mode-map. 8bace81bc

v0.4.5 2024-12-08

• At least Emacs 29.1 is required now.
• Started cashing calls to git during transient menu refreshes, similar to how such calls are cached when refreshing a Magit buffer. #712
• Fixed parent keymap of forge-issues-mode-map and forge-pullreqs-mode-map. 9ac2afbbb
• Fixed a regression in forge-topics-setup-buffer. #725
• By default only draft pull-requests are shown in italic now. The new forge-pullreq-draft face can be used to control how such pull-requests are shown. Previously all topics that are marked as done were shown in italic. #726
• Fixed infinite recursion in forge-get-issue and forge-get-pullreq. #704
• Fixed visiting commit in a browser. 8f9e94949
• Added new variable forge-bug-reference-remote-files. #703

v0.4.4 2024-10-01

Thoughts and whitespace.

v0.4.3 2024-09-04

• Fixed tracking a new repository using forge-pull. a839eaeaa
• Fixed type of forge--topics-spec’s state slot. 5ee14bfbd
• Fixed several issues with forge--topics-list-command. 1b4eaaedb, e94f6a37d
• When pulling API data outside a Git repository, do not try pull Git data, and make sure the buffer is refreshed regardless. #695

v0.4.2 2024-09-01

• Updated tooling.

v0.4.1 2024-08-14

• forge-add-repository now guides the user to set forge.remote and provides pointers to the relevant documentation, when additional configuration is required, before a repository can be added to the database. 834c81492 et al.
• forge-add-repository and forge-pull used to error for repository not hosted on a known host or when called outside any Git repository.
• Ssh host aliases did not get resolved as intended. #689
• In forge-notifications-mode buffers C-c C-c used to error. 7bcdffc75
• The “dwim” value displayed for forge.remote was inaccurate. 6ec5ad186
• Added new “Setup a Partially Supported Host” section to manual and fixed various typos. 4f6e58b4c
• Fixed inaccurate information and typos in the manual and usage messages. aa72a4d13 et al.

v0.4.0 2024-08-08

This is the biggest Forge release so far, consisting of more than 650 commits created over the course of more than two years. I am not able to load all that into working memory, and many parts of the code have received several rounds of improvements, so this changelog entry uses broader strokes than usual.

• This release pays off a large amount of technical debt. Many of the changes and additions below were only possible thanks to that effort, as are upcoming additions.
• Which topics are displayed in the current buffer can now be changed, using the new prefix command forge-topics-menu, available on N m f. This command is available in any buffer that lists topics, including Magit status buffers.

  Previously topic filtering relied on dedicated commands (which listed a hard-coded subset in a separate buffer) and functions (which inserted a hard-coded subset in a separate section in the status buffer). Most of these commands and functions have been removed.

  The default filters can be customized using the new forge-list-buffer-default-topic-filters and forge-status-buffer-default-topic-filters options. If you really want to insert additional hard-coded sets of topics in dedicated sections in the status buffer, you can still define them yourself, with the help of the new helper function forge-insert-topics.

• Dedicated buffers used to list topics now use a major mode derived from magit-mode, instead of from tabulated-list-mode. This makes it possible to remove a lot of duplication (because these buffers now use the same code as the topic list sections, displayed in the status buffer), and makes adding new features more feasible.
• forge-dispatch and the newly added menu commands (such as the already mentioned transient-topics-menu) now provide bindings to switch to any of the other menus. Similarly they provide bindings to switch to list buffers.

  This should make it easy to discover the new commands, and reduces the need to memorize new key bindings. It is sufficient to remember that N invokes forge-dispach, and to then browse the other menus from there. That being said, more efficient, but harder to remember, bindings are also available, such as:

• The new prefix command forge-topic-menu, now provides the most convenient way to edit an existing topic. When point is on a topic, it can be invoked using C-<return>. As is always the case in Magit, RET visits the thing at point in a separate buffer. In the case of topics, C-u RET does both; it displays the buffer and the menu.
• The parts of the Github API, that one has to use when syncing the private topic status, are truly abysmal. When I first created Forge, I figured that something so fundamentally broken would surely be fixed within a few months, and decided to wait until that was done.

  I was wrong, five years later nothing has changed, and I had no choice but to put in a lot of effort to implement workarounds, to achieve something that is worse than what could be trivially achieved, if the API were merely bad.

  Most frustratingly the ternary unread/pending/done is represented in API responses using a boolean. That obviously puts limits on the accuracy one can achieve in a third-party client. While that is the worst defect, it is just the tip of the iceberg.

• All the possible values for the public “state” and the private “status” of topics are now supported.

  The public state basically answers the question whether a topic has been closed yet, and if so, for what reason. The state can be one of open, completed and unplanned for issues, and open, merged and rejected for pull-requests.

  The private status answers the questions whether you have seen the latest changes yet, that someone else made to it, and when that is the case, whether you have additionally decided that you are “done” with that topic.

  Due to the defects of the Github API mentioned above, the distinction between the pending and done statuses of a topic cannot be synchronized with Github. So if you use both Forge and the web interface, you will sadly have to perform the “mark as done” action twice.

• By default Forge now lists “active” topics, i.e., topics whose public state is open and/or whose private status is unread or pending. In other words active topics are those that likely still require your attention.
• At least Emacs 27.1 is required now. Several dependencies have bumped their respective minimal requirement, so I had no choice in the matter, but to be honest, I am not unhappy about it.
• EmacSQL 4.0.0 is required now, which automatically uses the best available SQL backend. The new backend, which utilizes the built-in support (added in Emacs 29.1) is preferred. When using an older Emacs version, or when Emacs unwisely was compiled without SQLite support, then a different new backend is used. That backend uses the C module provided by the sqlite3 package, which you have to install explicitly. If the module also isn’t available, the legacy backend is used as a last resort. That backend is less reliable and much slower than the newer alternatives, and is going to be removed from EmacSQL in a not so distant future.
• It is now possible to add repositories to the local database, without first cloning the respective Git repositories, using the same command used to add the current Git repository. That command, forge-add-repository, now also offers to fetch only individual topics, or all topics that were modified since a cut-off date of the user’s choosing, instead of all topics.
• A project’s topics can now be listed, visited and modified even if no local clone of the respective Git repository exists. One way to navigate to such a project’s topics is to list all repositories using N l r and then press RET, while point is on the repository in question.
• Added new transient menu commands forge-topic-menu, forge-topics-menu, forge-topic-state-menu, forge-topic-status-menu, forge-repositories-menu, forge-configure, forge-post-dispatch and forge-notifications-menu, and converted forge-add-repository to a menu command.
• Added new commands forge-add-some-repository, forge-browse, forge-browse-this-repository, forge-browse-this-topic, forge-checkout-this-pullreq, forge-forge.graphqlItemLimit, forge-issue-state-set-completed, forge-issue-state-set-unplanned, forge-list-global-issues, forge-list-global-pullreqs, forge-list-global-topics, forge-menu-quit-list, forge-notifications-display-all, forge-notifications-display-done, forge-notifications-display-inbox, forge-notifications-display-saved, forge-notifications-style-flat, forge-notifications-style-nested, forge-post-toggle-draft, forge-pull-this-topic, forge-pullreq-state-set-merged, forge-pullreq-state-set-rejected, forge-read-topic-lift-limit, forge-refresh-buffer, forge-rename-default-branch, forge-toggle-topic-legend, forge-edit-topic-state, forge-topic-state-set-open, forge-topic-status-set-done, forge-topic-status-set-pending, forge-topic-status-set-unread, forge-topic-toggle-draft, forge-topic-toggle-saved, forge-topics-all-types, forge-topics-filter-active, forge-topics-filter-assignee, forge-topics-filter-author, forge-topics-filter-issues, forge-topics-filter-labels, forge-topics-filter-marks, forge-topics-filter-milestone, forge-topics-filter-pullreqs, forge-topics-filter-reviewer, forge-topics-filter-saved, forge-topics-filter-state-completed, forge-topics-filter-state-open, forge-topics-filter-state-unplanned, forge-topics-filter-status-done, forge-topics-filter-status-inbox, forge-topics-filter-status-pending, forge-topics-filter-status-unread, forge-topics-group, forge-topics-set-limit, forge-topics-set-order, forge-topics-ungroup, forge-visit-this-repository and forge-visit-this-topic.
• Added new options forge-buffer-draft-p, forge-limit-topic-choices, forge-list-buffer-default-topic-filters, forge-repository-list-columns, forge-repository-list-mode-hook, forge-status-buffer-default-topic-filters and forge-topic-repository-slug-width; and remove old options forge-database-connector, forge-topic-list-mode-hook, forge-topic-list-order, forge-topic-list-limit and forge-pull-notifications.
• Added new faces forge-dimmed, forge-issue-completed, forge-issue-open, forge-issue-unplanned, forge-pullreq-merged, forge-pullreq-open, forge-suffix-active-and-implied, forge-suffix-active, forge-suffix-implied, forge-topic-done, forge-topic-header-line, forge-topic-pending, forge-topic-slug-completed, forge-topic-slug-open, forge-topic-slug-saved, forge-topic-slug-unplanned, forge-topic-slug-unread and forge-pullreq-rejected. Some of them are approximate replacements for the removed faces forge-topic-closed, forge-topic-merged, forge-topic-open and forge-topic-unmerged.
• Added new Git variable forge.graphqlItemLimit. Ghub now fetches fewer items at once by default, but if you repeatedly get HTTP Error 502, "Bad gateway", when pulling API data for some repository, then limiting this to below 50 is likely to help (but results in more requests and slows down pulling.)
• If Forge cannot access its database, it disables itself, to keep Magit usable.
• The essential function forge-get-repository has undergone several rounds of improvements and now much better serves the diverse needs of its callers.
• When the user has to select a topic using completion, they are initially only offered open topics to select from, but by pressing + the choices can be extended to include all topics.

Also included are many other new features, improvements and bugfixes.

v0.3.2 2022-03-07

• The command forge-toggle-display-in-status-buffer now affects all relevant sections. #470
• It is possible to create a pull-request from an existing issue again. #473

v0.3.1 2022-02-16

• Added several existing commands to forge-dispatch.
• Added new option forge-add-default-sections, which can be set to nil to prevent Forge from adding bindings to Magit keymaps and transient prefix commands.
• Added new command forge-browse-repository. #443
• Added new variable forge-format-avatar-function. #447
• Added support for the sqlite-builtin and sqlite-module backends. See magit/emacsql#86.
• Added new option forge-checkout-worktree-read-directory-function. #463
• Also included are many other improvements, updated documentation and bugfixes.

v0.3.0 2021-10-14

• Many actions that were surprisingly slow are much faster now, because an embarrassing bottleneck was removed in Closql v1.2.0.
• Added new option forge-database-connector allowing the use of other database connector libraries beside emacsql-sqlite (currently only emacsql-libsqlite3 (experimental) and emacsql-sqlite3 (discouraged)). bae6a527, 21720580
• Commands that take a topic or repository as argument now expect an object/row ID instead of an object or a number. Objects are not suitable as interactive arguments because their printed representation would be presented to the user when using repeat-complex-command, and because they might not reflect the current state when used like that. Numbers would be more readable and actually meaningful to humans, but additionally they would be ambiguous. Non-interactive functions continue to expect objects as arguments. #368
• Some essential key bindings that were somewhat randomly selected during initial development have now been changed for consistency, which I always intended to do, but did not get around to do until now. forge-dispatch is now bound to N instead of ' and Forge’s bindings in magit-fetch and magit-pull now use N and n instead of Y and y. N was chosen because it was one of the last alphabetic keys available at the top-level in Magit. 8c9614e3 et al.
• Added new command forge-merge for merging pull-requests using the forge’s API, which I recommend you only use if someone forces you to do use the API. 3112aded
• Added support for following the links that some projects on Github display alongside issue templates. 46d5f253
• Setting the new Git variable forge.autoPull to false disables pulling Git data whenever API data is fetched. This may be useful in active mono-repos where there is always something new (but likely irrelevant) to pull. #362
• Added new commands forge-list-labeled-pullreqs and forge-list-labeled-issues. a3e6f8aa
• Starting with Emacs 28 bug-references is automatically configure for repositories cloned from many Git forges, so Forge no longer has to do it. #283, #412
• It is possible to fetch only select topics of a repository, which is useful if that happens to be large and/or if you are only interested in a select few topics (such as the one you are about to open). forge-pull learned to fetch information about the repository itself even when configured to only fetch certain topics. #382
• Added the forge-browse-* commands to forge-dispatch. #422
• Also included are several other improvements, updated documentation and bugfixes.

v0.2.1 2021-06-17

• Adjusted to breaking changes in EIEIO in Emacs 28.

v0.2.0 2021-05-25

• Second release.
• Features and bugfixes.
• I haven’t been keeping this list updated and don’t feel like going through hundreds of commits now. Sorry, maybe next time.

v0.1.0 2018-12-19

• Initial beta release.